


A Tree After Lightning

by Teccams_Socks



Category: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, If it's bad it's probably happened to him, Implied sexual abuse of children, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Let's face it he's had a hard life, So I just thought he deserved a story, Tarbean, This is a study of Pike, dark themes, domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:23:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teccams_Socks/pseuds/Teccams_Socks
Summary: Pike didn’t care about the big matters of the world. He didn’t think of it as cruel. It just was.A character study. Canon-compliant.





	A Tree After Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore Pike, the street-kid in Tarbean who caused Kvothe’s father’s lute to be broken. He didn't really get any deepening in the books, so here goes. 
> 
> **Warnings for:** child abuse, child homelessness, domestic abuse, implied sexual abuse of children, dark themes.

Pike burned. The torrent of foul, bitter dreg splashed onto him from the roof above the alley. He coughed and tried to squeeze the liquor from his eyes. Before he could look back up at the red-haired boy who had poured it—the one who had burned his precious things, destroyed his safe place—a light flared through his closed eyelids. Heat and anger jumped around him. He was aflame.

\---

Ma needed help with the laundry. Peric helped her hang it from branches too high for her to reach. She kissed his forehead and he went to the goat pen.

They were making a ruckus as always. Peric threw his breakfast inside the fence. The two goats jostled to his cold barley, rooting it up with mouthfuls of dry dirt. Peric watched them, then turned away.

He set about his chores. Fetch wood from the pile, make sure the goats have water, wipe away the sick beside the bed, fill a bucket at the Tillers’ well. The goats were calling once he got back. He could hear Da’s voice inside, and echoing pauses that meant Ma was the one he spoke to.

Peric brought the bucket through the door. Da was talking about the Tiller’s daughter. He was sober now. The cut on his forehead was almost hidden in grime. He pointed at Peric.

“Pic! Bring that here.”

Da stuck his arms to the elbows in the fresh water, and brought cupped hands to his face. He sighed a great gust and much of the water fell wasted to the dirt floor. Peric’s arms shook as he tried to keep the bucket high enough.

Da sluiced water through his hair and beard and then sat back. He looked at the dark, dirty bucket.

“Spill that out, Pic.” He pushed him toward the door, water slopping onto Peric’s bare feet and the already-damp floor. Ma made a sound of objection that the bawling goats didn’t quite hide.

“Wait,” Da said. Peric stopped.

“She’d rather it a different way,” Da said, eyes on Peric. “Would she?”

Peric looked at Ma. Her hands covered her mouth. She coughed from her chest. The sound had been wet since last winter.

“Would she, Pic?”

Peric nodded.

“Give it to her, Pic.”

Peric turned to Ma.

“Go on.”

Ma coughed again.

“Pour the damn water.”

His arms shook, rippling the dankness in the bucket. Da had pissed into it two span ago.

Da stood. He took the bucket and struck Peric in the temple. He fell.

Da splashed the water over Ma. He turned and dribbled the rest onto Peric on the damp floor. He belched and dropped the bucket. It struck Peric’s knee and his foot went tingly. Da laughed. He swaggered outside.

\---

Pike screamed, his hands batting at the fire lapping up his arm and side. He grabbed a fistful of makeshift canvas shirt and tore at it. A strip of flame came away in his hand.

\---

Da said they would feast. He came back late and killed the goats. One fell silent after he killed the other. He killed it anyway.

Da roused Ma and Peric and they cleaned and cooked the meat. Da ate like a king that night. Ma didn’t eat at all.

The next morning held bruises for both of them. The next evening held worse. It came from Ma.

“You must leave me and go to Tarbean, my love,” she said. “I have found a master who will teach you carpentry. You will become a fine man, and make me proud. But you must be out at dawn, before he wakes.” She held him and he heard the breath rattle through her chest before it found its way back out her cracked mouth.

The wagon left at dawn. Peric sat in the back, his toy horse tight in his hand, the smell of roasted goat meat thick from his travelsack. He felt the wind and the rumble of the wagon. He tasted salt.

The Master different from Da. He did not drink.

\---

Pike fell onto his front and writhed. The flames bit him everywhere. He felt he must be one big fire now. He tasted blood.

\---

The Master had a daughter named Dree. He warned Peric not to speak to her. Peric didn’t.

The Master taught Peric how to cut wood, how to bind it, how to smooth it soft and fit for a lady. He taught Peric how to know good wood from bad. He taught Peric how to scream, and beg, and bear him silently. He was very different from Da.

Dree had learned her lessons long ago. They had hollowed her like a tree after lightning strikes, burned her edges and left her jagged and shapeless and dead. Peric didn’t answer when she spoke to him. She scared him more than Master.

\---

Pike realized he had trapped the flame beneath him. It withered between his body and the greasy alley stones.

\---

Ma died that winter. Peric received a letter. He did not cry.

Dree came to him while he did his chores. She spoke of spring, when the saplings would be tender and best suited to fine craft.

“Most things’s more tender in the spring,” Peric said.

They spoke after that. All of Tarbean sprawled around them, but they were the only ones they saw aside from Master.

He gave Dree the first thing he made that he was proud of. A winter tree with broken branches that could cut unwary fingers. She gave him violets tied with white ribbon, and a lock of her hair in a box she’d made herself. He put his toy horse inside the box and knew nothing would ever be as precious to him.

\---

Pike rolled onto his back, wishing he would float away like the smoke rising off his body.

\---

Master found out. He beat Dree. Peric ran. He ran to the streets and did not go back. He ran until his knee fell under him. He limped until he found a door to sit in, holding his box close to his chest. He shook.

He took a place and made it his. He took the people he could. He protected his box and his place and his life.

Tarbean was just like Da and Master.

\---

Pike watched the smoke drift away. The fire was out. But still, he burned.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr: [teccams-socks.tumblr.com]()


End file.
